Your mobile phone is a mine of sensitive and crucial details about you, photos, bank details and passwords. However, malicious links and cyber can breach your privacy thus getting a hold on your data. One of the common questions that is always asked by users is can someone breach data after resetting the phone? This depends on the reset type you have chosen for your phone. In this article, we have discussed the different types of data resets and ways to mitigate the risk of hacked phones.
What is a Data Breach?
A data breach is a common phenomenon wherein the sensitive information stored in your phone gets leaked. This is one of the ways wherein hackers steal your data, like credit card passwords or photos. One of the possible reasons for data breaches is the presence of malware or tapping into phishing links. Data breaches can be big or small but it give safe access to your sensitive data to hackers.
Types of Data Reset for Phone
There are two types of data reset for phones, namely, soft reset and hard reset. These resets ensure that you can wipe your data keeping your phone clean thus preventing any data breach.
1. Soft Reset
A soft reset is the first reset for a phone that can be done, if the phone is facing a temporary glitch. To do this, you have to simply restart your phone. This simple reset helps to clear the phone’s memory (RAM) by shutting down the running applications. This quick reset solves minor issues without affecting the data thus preventing the data breach.
2. Hard Rest
A hard reset or a factory reset is the ultimate data eraser that wipes down the phone clean. This reset for the phone restores the data, apps, photos, music, contacts, and even the operating system. This reset option is perfect if your phone is facing any major software glitches.
Is it Possible to Breach Data After Resetting Phone
Factory resetting the phone is a common practice that helps to keep the phone clean by wiping down all the present data. This is typically done before reselling a phone or resolving a major software issue. But the question here is, can someone get their hands on your data if you have reset your phone? Let us get a quick idea of that below.
- Whenever you choose a factory reset,99% of your total data is wiped out from the internal storage. The primary data that is wiped off are contacts, photos, messages, or even the latest operating system.
- Post a factory reset, recovering data is highly unlikely. Modern smartphones encrypt data by default making it unreadable in the absence of its encryption key. Even if a hacker tries to break your data, he might get that only in bits and pieces.
- Lastly, a hard reset only affects the data available in the phone’s internal storage. This means that the data that you have backed upto Google Cloud or iCloud remains safe but can be accessed through those platforms. So, the key here is to keep the cloud safe as the data stored in the cloud is retrievable.
How to Mitigate the Risk of Hacked Phone?
Hacking the phone has become a common practice in the digital era and hackers use different ways to do this. However, preventing hacking is simple if you follow some guidelines that help to mitigate the risk.
- Always keep your phone updated as this ensures that all the latest security patches are installed on the phone. These fix all the issues that can be exploited by hackers. Hence, you should always look for the latest updates offered by the system as it protects your phone from data leak
- Never download apps from 3rd party sources. Always stick to the Google Play Store or Apple App Store to get the real version of the apps. You can also check app permissions thoroughly before downloading the applications
- While iPhones do not typically require antivirus software. However, Android users can choose paid or free antivirus apps for added protection. You can download free antivirus apps from Google Play or can also invest in paid versions
- Use strong and unique passwords or 2FA for your phone or social media apps. This adds an extra layer of security as the hacker will required to breach both layers even if he has your password
- Phishing scams often try to trick you into clicking malicious links that can hack your system. Hence, to mitigate the risk of hacking, you should stay away from suspicious emails, and text messages.
- Be extra cautious when connecting your mobile phone to a public wifi. This is because public wifi networks can allow hackers to snoop into your devices easily. Therefore, avoid accessing sensitive information or making online transactions on public Wi-Fi
- Regularly back up your phone’s data om an external hard drive with strong encryption. This ensures you have a copy of your data even if your phone is compromised
